Activated Ability

Icons of many Activated Abilities on Bloons TD 6, abilities that are not currently available are shown in a darker color and with an orange circle that indicates remaining cooldown.

Activated Abilities are a game mechanic introduced in Bloons TD 5. These are special attacks or powerful effects that certain towers can perform after obtaining a certain upgrade and must be activated manually. After being used, the abilities go into a period of time where they cannot be used again known as ability cooldown (to differentiate it from attack cooldown), and once this time expires, the ability can be used again.

Mechanics

In most Bloons TD games where they appear, Activated Abilities share a common set of mechanics with very few exceptions, for particulars on a specific game check their corresponding section below.

• All tower types have at least one Activated Ability, but is usually restricted to a specific upgrade, for example in games from the BTD5 generation, they are obtained from a path 2, tier 4 upgrade, meanwhile Heroes in the BTD6 generation gain an ability at Levels 3 and 10.
• After purchasing the upgrade, the game will show an icon on the screen with an image corresponding to the ability, and to activate it, the player must click on the icon.
• If the player has multiples of a tower which has an ability, each individual tower will be able to perform it independently from the rest, and the icon on the screen will show a number indicating the amount of uses that the player has available across all towers on the map.
• After using an ability, the tower it belonged to will start a timer where it cannot be used again, this is known as an ability cooldown and its duration might be different for each individual ability. In the user interface, the icon will change slightly to indicate that it is not available and present some sort of graphic to indicate the remaining time until it is recharged.
• When the upgrade is purchased, the ability may be instantly available or start in cooldown for game balance reasons, also they may or may not be used in breaks between rounds.
• Certain towers or game mechanics can provide buffs to decrease the amount of time needed to recharge an ability, but these are independent from the usual attack speed buffs.

Bloons TD 3 and Bloons TD 4

Although abilities were not formally introduced until the fifth entry of the series, a precursor of this mechanic is found in Bloons Tower Defense 3 by upgrading a Monkey Beacon into a Monkey Storm Beacon, and later in Bloons TD 4 by upgrading a Monkey Beacon into a Monkey Storm Beacon, which allows it to call a Super Monkey Storm on command by paying some cash.

Bloons TD 5

Activated Abilities were formally introduced in BTD5, and are obtained by upgrading towers to their path 2 tier 4 upgrade, with the exception of the Banana Farm. Certain Special Agents can also have an ability.

List of Activated Abilities on BTD5

Tower	Upgrade	Effect
Dart Monkey	Super Monkey Fan Club	Transforms itself and 10 Dart Monkeys into Super Monkeys for 10 seconds.
Tack Shooter	Blade Maelstrom	Constantly shoots blades that cover the entire map.
Sniper Monkey	Supply Drop	Generates a crate that contains some cash.
Boomerang Thrower	Turbo Charge	Increases the attack speed significantly for 10 seconds.
Ninja Monkey	Sabotage Supply Lines	After its use, any new Bloons that enter the map for the next 15 seconds will have their speed permanently halved. It also affects Bloons that spawned during the last 10 seconds prior to the activation, but only during the duration of the ability.
Bomb Tower	MOAB Assassin	Launches a powerful missile that does heavy damage to the nearest MOAB-Class Bloon.
Ice Tower	Absolute Zero	Freezes all small Bloons on the screen for 4 seconds and slows them down 50%, including MOAB-Class Bloons.
Glue Gunner	Glue Striker	Applies glue to all Bloons on the screen.
Monkey Buccaneer	Monkey Pirates	Hooks and takes down the strongest MOAB-Class Bloon on the screen. Does not affect ZOMGs.
Monkey Ace	Ground Zero	Drops a bomb that deals 350 damage to all Bloons on the screen.
Super Monkey	Technological Terror	Deals heavy damage to all Bloons within a short radius from the tower.
Monkey Apprentice	Summon Phoenix	Summons a Phoenix that files over the map that shoots flames to the Bloons.
Monkey Village	MIB Call To Arms	Increases the attack speed, pierce, and range of all towers in the Village's range for 10 seconds.
Mortar Tower	Artillery Battery	Immobilizes all Bloons on the screen and they take a some damage over time, small Bloons and MOABs are stunned 5 seconds, BFBs 2 seconds and ZOMGs 0.5s.
Dartling Gun	Bloon Area Denial System	Launches a set of missiles towards the nearest 100 Bloons on the screen.
Spike Factory	Spike Storm	Shoots 200 spike piles across the track.
Heli Pilot	Support Chinook	Has two abilities: Drops a create with cash and lives. Can reposition a tower to a different place on the map.
Monkey Engineer	Overclock	Targets a tower in the screen and increases its attack speed significantly.
Bloonchipper	Supa-Vac	Pulls all small Bloons towards it and keeps them in place until they are sucked by the tower for 8 seconds.
Monkey Sub	First Strike Capability	Sends a missile towards the strongest Bloon on the screen that deals 6,000 damage to the Bloons on the blast radius.

Bloons TD Battles

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Bloons Monkey City

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Bloons TD 6

Upgrade screen of the Dart Monkey in BTD6, upgrades that concede Activated Abilities are highlighted by a orange thunder symbol in the top right of the upgrade icon. In this case it only applies to the middle path on tiers 4 and 5.

In Bloons TD 6, activated abilities are usually obtained by upgrading towers into their middle path, usually on tiers 4 and 5, but some tier 3 upgrades can also have abilities. Heroes on the other hand gain their abilities when they reach Level 3 and Level 10, but some of them also have a third ability at Level 7.

For balance reasons, specially in competitive modes, some abilities may have restrictions on how often they can be used:

• Have a limited amount of activations per round, this is specially evident on Cash-generating abilities.
• Can only be activated in 3 minutes from the round start.
• Needs to pay lives as a cost.
• Cannot be used during the break between rounds.
• Disabled during the penalty timer of Boss Bloon Events and Contested Territory Boss tiles.

Buffs that reduce the ability cooldowns stack additively, including the penalty from Blastapopoulos's passive abilities, but the cooldown can only be decreased by up to 70% from its normal amount (excluding challenge modifiers).

Bloons TD Battles 2

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